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Nantucket's Natty By Edwin M. Hall IF, IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, a literate person were asked who Nantucket's best-known fictional whaleman was, he would obviously name Melville's Captain Ahab. In the preceding century, however, the choice would have required more thought. In those days James Fenimore Cooper's fame rode high and Herman Melville's fairly low; our literate friend might well have named Long Tom Coffin of Cooper's The Pilot. Admittedly, Long Tom is in the Revolutionary navy throughout the book, or at least until his death. But he is a whaleman nevertheless. He has served in whalers; he carries a harpoon with him; and, during the story, he actually harpoons and kills a whale from one of his ship's boats. (In case Melville addicts are wondering. Long Tom didn't need a lance on this occasion, but he had rigged one, using a bayonet.) 1 Long Tom had been born at sea, as his mother's ship was crossing Nantucket Shoals.2 He stood almost six feet six 3 and was about fifty years old.4 He "often prayed,....standing, and in silence."5 When he was amused, there was a "paroxysm of his low, spiritless laughter," 6 a quiet sort of laugh which he shared with Cooper's more famous hero, Natty Bumppo or Leather-Stocking. It is the purpose of this paper to suggest that this Nantucketer, who has a larger-than-life aura about him, was, to a considerable extent, the original of Natty Bumppo (also known as Leather-Stocking, Hawkeye, the Trapper, the Pathfinder, and Deerslayer). Chronologically, I must admit, Natty appeared first. He is in Cooper's third novel, The Pioneers. Long Tom is in Cooper's fourth novel. Nevertheless, I submit two pieces of evidence. The first is in James Russell Lowell's "Fable for Critics." After making fun of Cooper's characters, Lowell concedes; He has drawn you one character, though, that is new, One wildflower he's plucked that is wet with the dew Of this fresh Western world, and, the thing not to mince, He's done naught but copy it ill ever since.
